Good luck to them. Not sure how much practical benefit there is over a splash down landing in the short to medium term but it's nice to see someone try something new.
SpaceX in ROCKET HOVERSHIP PRANG: 'Close – but no cigar,' says Musk
SpaceX's attempt to land its Falcon 9 rocket on a floating hovership in the Atlantic Ocean ended in failure in the early hours of Saturday morning. Youtube Video Billionaire Elon Musk tweeted about his firm's efforts to recover the rocket, after lift-off and separation from the Dragon private space podule, which is now …
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Saturday 10th January 2015 14:32 GMT Graham Dawson
The benefit is in allowing reliable refurbishing of the engines at low cost instead of hoping that the engines survive immersion in sea water, which in turns cuts the cost of launches, as the engines can be re-used reliably instead of having to be built fresh for each launch.
On the capsule side, having it land at a designated landing site instead of splashing down would slash the recovery costs to a fraction of their current level. Instead of having to keep a bunch of ships and aircraft on standby to find the capsule, you can just walk up to it and open the door. And you can refurb and re-use it without much effort too.
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Saturday 10th January 2015 15:18 GMT John Brown (no body)
"It'll be interesting to see how reliable refurbished engines turn out to be compared with single use,"
I would expect that current engines are designed as single use motors since they arenot expected to be recovered. When there is a successful and reliable method of dry and soft landing/recovery then the engines will be designed and built for reliable re-use. That will probably cost more per engine, but so long as the number re-uses is more than the build/refurb cost, launch cost goes down. That's not to mention the savings in reusing the entire first stage again.
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Saturday 10th January 2015 16:09 GMT James Hughes 1
Google?
All the questions above can be answered with a very quick Google search.
The Merlin engines are said to be capable of 40 cycles without servicing, and Musk has stated that even the servicing after that is only a few replacement parts. They were designed with reusability in mind.
Benefits of reuse are huge, the 1st stage alone costs >$50M. They are aiming for rapid turnaround (a day or so), so that a huge saving from throwing the stage away each launch.
Currently trying to land on barge, intent is to return to launch site (except for F9H centre core which will need a barge landing)
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Sunday 11th January 2015 20:52 GMT Alan Brown
Re: Google?
"Currently trying to land on barge, intent is to return to launch site (except for F9H centre core which will need a barge landing)"
The barge landing is to prove precision landing capability before they try for a land-based point. As far as I'm aware there's no intention to return the barge to shore with the rocket onboard even if the landing is sucessful.
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Sunday 11th January 2015 20:49 GMT Alan Brown
"The space shuttle's main engines were designed to be reusable from the start."
The SSMEs were a clusterfuck from start to finish(*), which is appropriate as the shuttle was a camel anyway. Refurbing the entire system for flight cost more than building a new expendable launcher but NASA was committed to it because of congressional pork and the same mentality which resulted in $600 hammers and $2000 toilet seats.
SpaceX is trying for reusable because they believe they can save money. If it doesn't work out, they'll drop it.
(*) bad design, bad execution, complete change of technology and expected to work at full power from the outset instead of staging up designs as knowledge was gained, coupled with a mentality that it was better to test complete engines - which led to a number of self-destructions on the test stands as bad welds came to light.
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Sunday 11th January 2015 17:13 GMT TonboIV
Re: It's been tried before...
October 7 1903: Samuel Langley, no less than the secretary of the Smithsonian Institute and a brilliant man, launched his airplane, the "Aerodrome". He had lots of money from the army and a high tech custom built engine. It fell straight into the Potomac river.
December 17 1903: The Wright Brothers launched their "Wright Flyer". They were bicycle makers who had taught themselves aerodynamics. They had almost no help. They built their own engine. They used only their own meagre funds. They flew 120 feet. The first in series of ever more successful flights.
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Sunday 11th January 2015 17:45 GMT cray74
Re: It's been tried before...
"Yeah, just like the concept of the Space Shuttle. Reusable, must be cheaper. $1.2 BILLION per shot."
The flyaway cost of a shuttle launch was about $60 million, including refurbished boosters and new external booster. However, if you launched only a few times per year then you have to pay for 10,000+ workers and a lot of infrastructure that was just waiting for those infrequent launches. Hence, $1.2 billion a launch in the latter years of the shuttle program.
If the shuttle fleet had sustained 12 launches per year, the cost per launch would've been very different than $1.2 billion.
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Sunday 11th January 2015 20:58 GMT Alan Brown
Re: It's been tried before...
"If the shuttle fleet had sustained 12 launches per year"
Then the shuttles would have been retired as "end of life" by the mid 1990s.
The prime mission of Shuttle was to build a USA space station which never happened(*)
Because it didn't happen, the launcher was left flailing around for a purpose to exist and all the science missions which happened were mainly self-justification and a way to keep a manned program going through the cold war.
(*) Until the shuttle program was almost at its end anyway.
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Monday 12th January 2015 05:50 GMT Robert Heffernan
Re: It's been tried before...
@JeffyPoooh
Pooh Pooh To You JeffyPoooh.
SpaceX isn't a government operation. It's a private company with in house manufacturing and is focused on inexpensive space access for a profit.
It's not some government pork barrel where every company is out to milk it for all the cash it can like the Space Shuttle program was.
Therefore your argument is invalid.
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Sunday 11th January 2015 00:16 GMT Anonymous Coward
This all may seem like a great idea until you consider that every recovery system adds to complexity and mass of the vehicle (and the recycled parts may never launch again). I'm curious whether it does add up economically or it's done just to look cool.
Besides, not that I want to rain on the parade but all this talk of private space programs bothers me a bit. As if we needed another, more efficient way of funneling and burning public money (yep, in the end someone has to pay for this all and I'll be surprised if Musk and alike were draining their own accounts). And to add insult to injury, with all the talk of global warming all this scientific and commercial goals come at the carbon footprint of 450+ tonnes of burned fuel a pop (just wait until they shoot for Mars). Hopefully they'll show better integrity than Japanese whaling "researchers".
Anonymous (if this was really possible) just to avoid a stigma of science denier.
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Sunday 11th January 2015 21:53 GMT James 51
In the long term yes but in the next ten years/the next generation of rockets will the extra mass that will go into what goes up and goes down again cost more in payload capicity, maintance and reliability that (presumably) simpler single use engines? It's cool and I hope it works sooner rather than later but I wonder if it would be better to put this into the next generation of SpaceX rockets.
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Saturday 10th January 2015 18:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
He's no "Dr Evil"...
Musk has been compared to a James Bond villain for his improbable contraptions and unlikely future-tech proposals. But fictional Dr Evil's tech worked better; the only consistent failure was in the restraint systems holding 007 to meet his fate.
Musk is like an inept Dr Evil.
I mean that in a nice way...
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Tuesday 13th January 2015 10:33 GMT Malmesbury
The first stage is 80-90% of the value of the whole rocket. If they can just gas-and-go.. well, ask your boss what would happen to the business if you could make 80% of the costs go away....
Yes this is very high compared to many other launchers. The Falcon 9 uses one modified version of the first stage engines, a copy of the same computers, tankage made on the same tooling etc.
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Saturday 10th January 2015 13:39 GMT simon 43
Not a bad result!
SpaceX have said the experiment was a failure... I still think they did extremely well to bring it back to the 100m wide barge - just repeating that is going to be impressive (then perhaps they can move the landing site to terra firma?).
It'll be interesting to hear what happened with the landing itself, as I recall reading previous tests (over the water) have achieved a 'hover', the 'hard' landing would tend to indicate that they might not have achieved it (hover) this time around.
Beer entitlement achieved!
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Saturday 10th January 2015 13:54 GMT Weapon
Re: Not a bad result!
Well the landing was too hard for the rocket to handle, but it was not too hard overall. If it was way too hard it would have sunk the barge. Judging that the barge is for the most part fine, what most likely happened different from a water landing to a surface landing is just that, accounting for the surface. It gets even more iffy since that said surface is floating up and down due to water flow.
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Saturday 10th January 2015 16:13 GMT James Hughes 1
Re: Not a bad result!
It's debatable whether even at terminal velocity the rocket could have sunk the barge (or even punctured the 20mm steel deck). The engines act as crumple zones, and the whole thing doesn't weigh much empty anyway. Top speed of a couple of hundred MPH with no braking burn, but with no braking burn it would miss the barge anyway.
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Saturday 10th January 2015 19:06 GMT Anonymous Coward
Parachutes... No, other end.
Attach the big (slow) parachutes to the BOTTOM of the 1st Stage so it dangles upsidedown, add some big flotation inflatables at the optimum spot, and the engines could be kept more or less dry above ocean's surface at splashdown.
No need for difficult future tech.
No need for extra fuel to support hovering in to landing.
Ocean is a bigger target.
No need to design engines that can withstand their own exhaust flare at landing near a surface.
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Saturday 10th January 2015 22:57 GMT Jan 0
Re: Parachutes... No, other end.
Unfortunately the engines are the heavy bit, the rest of the stage is a float. Only a rigid flotation ring* would keep a top heavy tube safely dry in a heavy swell. In effect, you'd need to take the barge into space.
* Well the floats could be inflatable, but they'd need a very wide rigid frame to hold them well away from the first stage.
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Saturday 10th January 2015 16:11 GMT James Hughes 1
It was foggy as well...
Lights not much help. IR cameras have been suggested, but they would be swamped by the heat from the engine plume.
TBH, the telemetry is what they need, video would be a bonus anyway.
Original landing time would have been in daylight had it not been for the scrub on Tuesday.
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Saturday 10th January 2015 17:17 GMT Vulch
Re: A valiant effert none the less.
They've got a pretty good idea of what will need to be checked and replaced from the Grasshopper tests. The first few stages to be recovered will be completely dismantled and inspected to confirm that, and to check what has been affected by the stresses of a full bore flight rather than the relatively gentle up and down of Grasshopper and its successors.
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Saturday 10th January 2015 22:44 GMT Anonymous Coward
Yes Mr Director, another successful landing in Area 51 with your payload.
No , this time we called it a "hard landing". Yes thank you it is very useful having the NASA studio make up the videos for us to release.
Yes, your clients min-sub docked inside the barge successfully.
No, payment in plutonium is fine.
No, no, I don't care how many satellites that prick Brin has, it is kept over 2000 metres below Necker island, and he'll never detect it.
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Sunday 11th January 2015 01:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
I'm surprised they got as close to an actual landing as they did.
I'd think that even at the sub-escape velocity speeds the stage was at when it separated from the capsule, you would need a lot of fuel to slow the stage down as it tried to land. If the fuel is cheap and environmentally benign enough, then this looks like something that SpaceX will be able to markedly improve upon in the future.
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Sunday 11th January 2015 04:45 GMT Misky
And we have Splatdown... damn.
Still a very good effort considering the task they are trying to accomplish. This is the kind of thing only private enterprise could have come up with. Can you imagine any of the space agencies agreeing in a concept meeting to and engineer who says "The rocket goes up, separates, then drops back to earth with pinpoint precision, but wait it gets better, then it hovers and lands on a boat!"... "OK thanks for the presentation Frank..." *hushed whisper* "is he still taking his medication?"
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Sunday 11th January 2015 10:34 GMT Boris the Cockroach
Its more
likely Elon Musk was playing Kerbal space program one morning, attatched parachutes to his first stage, then watched it blow up on landing , thought... what if I put on landing legs and kept some fuel back for a soft'ish landing.. and it worked.
Then ran into his office, called for a big meeting, and said " Guys... I was playing KSP this mornign and had this really really great idea.... "
And his engineers thought as one.
"Gawd, hes going to ask us to wear those big head masks and paint ourselves green again"
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Sunday 11th January 2015 20:41 GMT John Brown (no body)
"OK thanks for the presentation Frank..." *hushed whisper* "is he still taking his medication?"
...did anyone else read that and "hear" it in Bob Newharts voice?
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Sunday 11th January 2015 06:52 GMT Katie Saucey
Hat's off beer raised
SpaceX has finally expanded upon, and taken NASA's (also Soviets +others) achievements to the next level, something pesky geopolitics and politicians have stagnated for decades. Even though they smashed their rocket, just hitting the barge seems like a win to me, I seem to recall some Gemini, Apollo and especially Soyuz (23?) landings to be seriously +dangerously off target.